Author: Admin

In concert: The Barr Brothers

Sam Reynolds “Where did you all come from?” vocalist and guitar player Brad Barr rhetorically asked the audience midway through the Barr Brother’s official self-titled album release show last Tuesday at La Tulipe. He was speaking to the fact that the band had already self-released the album last year to[Read More…]

Chad VanGaalen takes listeners on a trip to Diaper Island

Jeff Thorburn / killbeatmusic.com Jeff Thorburn / killbeatmusic.com We’re often told that success and happiness come from, amongst other things, being yourself. Calgary’s Chad VanGaalen has made a career of doing the exact opposite.  The two-time Polaris Prize-nominated multi-instrumentalist is best known for his genre-bending song-based material. That he ended[Read More…]

Coma Unplugged is very much alive

Talisman Theatre It’s a terrible thing to watch a mind go to waste. Yet Pierre-Michel Tremblay’s Coma Unplugged makes it so infectiously fun. Talisman Theatre’s latest production is proof that when you mix a sharply written script with a cast whose energy knows no bounds, magic occurs. The play, translated[Read More…]

A fortress to take shelter in

killbeatmusic.com It only takes two minutes talking to Jennifer Castle to feel completely mellow. The light, pure tone of her singing voice matches the soft, relaxed tone of her conversation, and clues you into her laid back, organic approach to music. Evident in her newest album, Castlemusic, Castle’s take on[Read More…]

Justice: Audio, Video, Disco

 Webster’s English Dictionary should go ahead and put the album art for Audio, Video, Disco beside the definition of sophomore slump. The first album from the French electrohouse duo, †, was just about perfect in every regard. However, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay took many of its positive aspects[Read More…]

One of America’s first hipsters

Rock n’ roll tested the ‘50s. Hippies protested the ‘60s and ‘70s. Similarly, the hipster subculture of recent years has been challenging the established conventions of youth, and doing so with increasing press, influence, and sartorial expression. In theory, hipsterism—through independent thinking, progressive politics and, perhaps most clichéd, an artsy[Read More…]

Iced Earth: Dystopia

That Iced Earth’s newest album Dystopia is nearly identical to its predecessors does not necessarily condemn it to mediocrity. The band’s leader (and sole fixture), rhythm guitarist Jon Schaffer, has been cutting songs from the same cloth for a long time, but has managed to produce a number of very[Read More…]

The filling of a bucket

Despite the obligatory pledges to myself that precede every semester, promising that this time will be different, I always end up choosing one or two classes to prioritize over the others. I track down interesting texts mentioned off-handedly by the professor. I start researching the day an assignment is announced.[Read More…]

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